Tessy and the Lost Tourmaline Mine

For ten year-old Tessy, there's nothing better than spending the summer with Gramps at his Maine house. But this summer was different, when Gramps shows Tessy an unfinished tourmaline necklace meant for her grandmother. Gramps tells Tessy about working in Maine's tourmaline mines as a young man, and immediately the two are set upon revisiting the lost mine and finding a tourmaline stone to finish the necklace. In an narrative story told from the point of view of Tessy, the little girl and her grandfather equip themselves for a trip to old mines and find a secret cave where Gramps had years earlier found tourmaline to start the necklace gift. Mustering her bravery, and thanks to her small size, Tessy is able to crawl into a part of the cave where no one else had been able to reach and finds a piece of Maine's famous "watermelon" tourmaline to finish the necklace. Through Tessy's eyes we see how family ties are reinforced through shared tasks, and how the rarest gems are not necessarily those taken from the ground, but those we find in our own lives as we show love, exchange gifts, and create family legacies.